61 replies to this topic

[splonk]

MiniHack, on Jul 28 2011, 08:34 PM, said:

I did see on the russian site that they reckon the '92 card is supported for airdrop out of the box, but that the '72 needs IDs adding to the Atheros40 plugin inside the IO80211Family.kext - I did try and add the device iDs into the plists on that kext, but I think that advice was outdated as the plugins in the retail version of Lion don't seem to be the same as discussed over on the russian site.

Anyway, any help appreciated.

Yup, I saw that and it didn't work for me in my Macbook with the correct ID, either. I wonder if we could use the Atheros40.kext from DP1 in the GM and patch it with the correct ID. Anyone care to upload the IO8211Family.kext?

[MiniHack]

splonk, on Aug 3 2011, 10:59 AM, said:

Yup, I saw that and it didn't work for me in my Macbook with the correct ID, either. I wonder if we could use the Atheros40.kext from DP1 in the GM and patch it with the correct ID. Anyone care to upload the IO8211Family.kext?

Nice to get your confirmation. I have a cheap '92 card on the way from China I'm going to try. Should be here in the next few days.

If anyone gets the '72 card working with airdrop please report back. It'd be nice to have a larger list of confirmed working cards.

[MiniHack]

Ok, two minutes work swapping to the '92 card. Specifically this one was enough to solve for me.


  Card Type: AirPort Extreme  (0x168C, 0x8F)
  Firmware Version: Atheros 9280: 4.0.55.4-P2P
  MAC Address:
  Locale: FCC
  Country Code: AT
  Supported Channels: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 36, 40, 44, 48, 52, 56, 60, 64, 100, 104, 108, 112, 116, 120, 124, 128, 132, 136, 140
  Wake On Wireless: Supported
  AirDrop: Supported
  Status: Connected

I do have to say though that I re-installed the IO80211Family.kext as before I did that even the new card was not doing the business for me. It worked fine, but did not support airdrop to begin with, I suspect something I did to the kext previously when trying to get the '72 card working stopped the '92 card from getting airdrop. So I took the kext from my new MacBook Air and installed that.....after that it was bingo!

I will out of curiousity go back and check again now the '72 card to make sure there was nothing magical about the MBA kext!

EDIT: No, no magic. Swapping back to the '72 - airdrop disappears, change back again to the '92 and back it comes.....my advice: go for the '92!!

[HFW]

I can confirm that neither my old D-Link DWA-556, or the BCM94321MC I just purchased support Airdrop... Slightly pissed off too, was going to get the 4322 but couldn't find any on eBay UK v.v

Ah well, only really got a new card for 5Ghz

en0:
  Card Type:	AirPort Extreme  (0x14E4, 0x88)
  Firmware Version:	Broadcom BCM43xx 1.0 (5.10.131.36.11)
  MAC Address:	*removed*
  Locale:	ETSI
  Country Code:	GB
  Supported PHY Modes:	802.11 a/b/g/n
  Supported Channels:	1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 36, 40, 44, 48, 52, 56, 60, 64, 100, 104, 108, 112, 116, 120, 124, 128, 132, 136, 140
  Wake On Wireless:	Supported
  Status:	Connected

Unless I need to reinstall/delete some file to get Airdrop enabled on the Broadcom? :S

[splonk]

BCM94321 does not support Airdrop. I have one of those in my Mac Mini and it doesn't work. You need to go for the BCM94322. Plenty of sellers in China on eBay.co.uk and a couple in the UK for a few quid more. I went for the Atheros that MiniHack suggested (thanks!) as it was even cheaper. That's my Macbook and MBP sorted out.

Out of interest, MiniHack, was your card a genuine Apple card? I would be very surprised if it were for that price.

[RN95]

Thanks for your input..
Rgds

[tantan]

so you paid 130$ incl shipping for a noname wifi card?
i cant believe it.

[HFW]

...Wow.

The adaptor card looks awfully like the one I got for £10 too link

Quote

BCM94321 does not support Airdrop. I have one of those in my Mac Mini and it doesn't work. You need to go for the BCM94322. Plenty of sellers in China on eBay.co.uk and a couple in the UK for a few quid more. I went for the Atheros that MiniHack suggested (thanks!) as it was even cheaper. That's my Macbook and MBP sorted out.

Out of interest, MiniHack, was your card a genuine Apple card? I would be very surprised if it were for that price.

Hm thought so. Well I'll probably look into getting either the 4322 or the Atheros at some pont then. Airdrop'll probably come in handy when I get my MBP...

Thanks.

[HFW]

Ralink? What? Its a mini PCI-E to PCI-E x1 adaptor card...

Same adaptor card that was used to create that $130 wifi card you bought by the looks of things =/

[splonk]

Taruga, on Aug 6 2011, 01:53 PM, said:

Believe it or not, it´s true! I wanted a Wifi card to be supported out of the box and with AirDrop support. It´s a PCIE card raiser with an Apple Airport Extreme Card.
It works awesome, as expected... do you want better that this ?

Want to see the invoice ?

Bless you, Taruga. You made one eBay seller very happy. Think of it as a charitable donation. $20 of wifi kit at a $110 markup. Did you have to pay 21% import VAT plus 'customs handling fee' as well?

If you wanted the genuine article at a better price, you should just have searched outside of eBay for one of these and any wifi pcie adapter from eBay.

[lifelike27]

Hey guys,

I bought the BCM94322 from an eBay seller in Honk Kong for $14 here.
It was advertised as the DW1510 but that doesn't seem to matter really.

It works fine but AirDrop isn't compatible, doesn't show up in the Finder preferences.

This is the info in my System Information for the card:

en2:
  Card Type:	Third-Party Wireless Card
  MAC Address:	
  Supported PHY Modes:	802.11 a/b/g/n
  Supported Channels:	1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 36, 40, 44, 48, 52, 56, 60, 64, 100, 104, 108, 112, 116, 120, 124, 128, 132, 136, 140, 149, 153, 157, 161, 165
  Wake On Wireless:	Supported
  Status:	Network Service Inactive

Since it recognizes the card as a third party wireless card should I try rebranding the card to get OSX to recognize it as an AirPort Extreme?

[iLeopod]

I have the Atheros AR5BXB72 (full Size with there antenna connectors)
I get Airdrop after adding pci168c,24 to AirPortAtheros40.kext. This seems also possible for Atheros AR5B95 /pci168c,2b.
 Wifi.jpg   24.27K   152 downloads

[splonk]

iLeopod, on Aug 7 2011, 09:07 AM, said:

I have the Atheros AR5BXB72 (full Size with there antenna connectors)
I get Airdrop after adding pci168c,24 to AirPortAtheros40.kext. This seems also possible for Atheros AR5B95 /pci168c,2b.
Wifi.jpg

Interesting. I take it this is a third party card? This did not work for me with a genuine card in my MB or MBP. If I added it to Atheros40 and removed it from Atheros21 I just lost Airport.

[iLeopod]

Dont remove the id from Atheros21.kext. I use a  Apple card.

[splonk]

OK, just tried this. Airport is up but cannot locate any signals. Only the Atheros21.kext seems to load.

[iLeopod]

What model you have? Look in IORegistry Explorer. System-profiler shows only the vendor and subsystem id which is the same for many models.

[splonk]

IORE gives me the hardware version as follows:

MacRev: 0x2 PhyRev: 0x81 Radio: 0xc0

[lifelike27]

lifelike27, on Aug 7 2011, 01:00 AM, said:

Hey guys,

I bought the BCM94322 from an eBay seller in Honk Kong for $14 here.
It was advertised as the DW1510 but that doesn't seem to matter really.

It works fine but AirDrop isn't compatible, doesn't show up in the Finder preferences.

This is the info in my System Information for the card:

en2:
  Card Type:	Third-Party Wireless Card
  MAC Address:	
  Supported PHY Modes:	802.11 a/b/g/n
  Supported Channels:	1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 36, 40, 44, 48, 52, 56, 60, 64, 100, 104, 108, 112, 116, 120, 124, 128, 132, 136, 140, 149, 153, 157, 161, 165
  Wake On Wireless:	Supported
  Status:	Network Service Inactive

Since it recognizes the card as a third party wireless card should I try rebranding the card to get OSX to recognize it as an AirPort Extreme?

Okay, no one seemed to have replied to my post earlier so I went ahead and rebranded my wireless card. It's now successfully recognized as an AirPort Extreme wireless card. However, AirDrop still doesn't show up in my finder preferences.

en2:
  Card Type:	AirPort Extreme  (0x14E4, 0x87)
  Firmware Version:	Broadcom BCM43xx 1.0 (5.10.131.36.1)
  MAC Address:	
  Locale:	FCC
  Country Code:	US
  Supported PHY Modes:	802.11 a/b/g/n
  Supported Channels:	1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 36, 40, 44, 48, 52, 56, 60, 64, 100, 104, 108, 112, 116, 120, 124, 128, 132, 136, 140, 149, 153, 157, 161, 165
  Wake On Wireless:	Supported
  Status:	Connected

Any help is really appreciated guys...

[rimmi2002]

Hi I just bought a BCM94322MC generic cardfrom ebay and was planning on rebranding it as apple. According to http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/ he threw this card in a mac and it works with airdrop and all. I'm thinking it will still be seen as a third party card.I looked at prasys's guide and wanted to rebrand it as a apple card. He changed both device and vendor id, but his guide is for BCM94312MC card which is not compatible with airdrop.

My question is what device ID would I use for the BCM94322MC? Its gotta be different that the BCM94312MC. Also does anyone know of a way of injecting the device and vendor id in the dsdt so don't have to mess with the card bios. Thanks.

[tantan]

Ioreg tells me that the chipset is brcm 43224.
i would like to try the rebranding trick to see if airdrop works then.
anyone knows how to do this on a brcm 43224 ?